What is PowerPoint?

What is PowerPoint?

PowerPoint is a complete presentation graphics package. It gives you everything you need to produce a professional-looking presentation. PowerPoint offers word processing, outlining, drawing, graphing, and presentation management tools- all designed to be easy to use and learn.

The following gives you a quick overview of what you can do in PowerPoint:

    When you create a presentation using PowerPoint, the presentation is made up of a series of slides. The slides that you create using PowerPoint can also be presented as overhead transparencies or 35mm slides.

    In addition to slides, you can print audience handouts, outlines, and speaker's notes.

    You can format all the slides in a presentation using the powerful Slide Master which will be covered in the tutorial.

    You can keep your entire presentation in a single file- all your slides, speaker's notes, and audience handouts.

    You can import what you have created in other Microsoft products, such as Word and Excel into any of your slides. 

What is an Animation?

Definition: In PowerPoint, OpenOffice Impress and other presentation software, animations are visual effects applied to individual items on the slide such as graphics, titles or bullet points. Animations are different than transitions, which are the movements of the whole slide.

Examples: The bullet points in Mary's PowerPoint presentation had animations applied so that they entered the screen from

the right side.

What are PowerPoint Animations?

Animations in Microsoft PowerPoint refer to the way that items, such as text boxes, bullet points or images move onto a slide during a slide show. There are two types of animations available in PowerPoint - Preset Animation Schemes, that affect all of the content on a slide, and Custom Animations, that allow you to apply a variety of animation effects

Note - All versions of PowerPoint have the Custom Animations feature, but Animation Schemes are specific to PowerPoint 2003.

While PowerPoint animations can certainly add variety and interest to your presentation, be careful in how you use them. The most common mistake in using animations, is in applying too many, which can overwhelm and distract your audience. Stick to one, or at most, two different animations throughout the show. Choose animations that are appropriate to subject matter.

Animations are one of the finishing touches to a presentation. Wait until you have the slides edited and arranged in the preferred order before setting animations.

What is a PowerPoint Presentation?

Definition:

The term "PowerPoint presentation" was coined when Microsoft introduced its software program PowerPoint. PowerPoint is commonly used by presenters as a digital aid when presenting their topic to an audience. Microsoft has called this type of software a "presentation", which is a misnomer. Many presenters often forget that they are the presentation that the audience came to see, not their

powerpoint presentation

Now that you know what features PowerPoint offers it's time to learn how to work in PowerPoint. 

What is Presentation Software?

Before computers were commonplace, presenters usually had an easel with posters or drawings to show any necessary graphics to the audience. In some cases the speaker would have a slide projector with a carousel of individual slides to show photographs on a screen.

Today, many software package suites contain a program designed to accompany the speaker when he makes a presentation. The specific presentation

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program in this suite of programs is usually (but not always) in the form of a slide show, much like the ones used in years past.

These presentation software programs make it simple and often fun to create a presentation for your audience. They contain a text editor to add your written content, and abilities within the program to add charts and graphic images such as photographs, clip art or other objects to liven up your slide show and get your point across simply.

Presentation software programs include -

    PowerPoint (many versions) - the leader on the Windows platform, and is created by Microsoft. PowerPoint can be bought separately or is included in the Microsoft Office suite of programs

    OpenOffice.org Impress - created by Sun Microsystems Inc. OpenOffice Impress (as it is more commonly known), is part of a suite of programs offered as a free download. The suite also contains a word processor, a spreadsheet program and a drawing program.

    Windows Movie Maker - a desktop video program, created by Microsoft installed on every Windows computer. Windows Movie Maker allows you to create and edit movies to use to accompany your presentation, although you can also add still photos or graphics and create a slide show, just as in PowerPoint and OpenOffice Impress.